Rauman Lukko kept its place in the Women’s League when it finished second in the qualifying series after RoK. In the last match played on April 2nd, Kiekko-Espoon Academy fell 3–1.
The season was challenging for the young team – ten players played in the team, for whom the league season was the first of their career.
However, the joy of remaining in the main league did not last long, as only a few weeks after the end of the league season, Lukko announced that he would give up his league position. Reason – there are not enough players in the team.
– Assembling the team has been challenging for several seasons, and now Lukko has to give up his place in the series due to the small number of players. However, the club community still has a women’s racing team, as Panelia Raikas moved up to Mestis at the end of the season, the club announced.
Represented Lukko for ten seasons Maija Koski however, says that the team’s players were not asked for their opinion.
– We were just informed that the office has now decided this way. No one asked the players and no one asked us to any event to discuss next season. Everything has come as a surprise, Koski, who is the team’s captain, commented to Urheilu.
Koski says that the players may have heard some kind of hint that it was planned to relegate the team to the women’s Mesti.
– We wondered why, when we still played for the league place. However, everything had already been decided before us, only this was announced, that we were going to Mesti. We all protested that it won’t work, we have a league place and then it was just announced that there won’t be a team. No one from the office came to tell us this, our team leader took the bullet, says Koski.
Koski says that the team’s officials have previously been responsible for player acquisition.
– There has always been a need for players. They have been allowed to request and apply, but that has always been done by the team, not the club. We have few employees who are burdened by the Player Search.
Rauma Luko’s club manager Antti Saarinen admits that the players were not asked if they wanted to continue in the league. According to Saarinen, however, the players were asked if they wanted to continue playing.
– The decision on whether the club will continue in the league or not came from the club’s board after it had been determined how many were continuing and what our number of players is. The deadline for registration was the 15th, and the number of players was so small that we didn’t dare to play the league with that number.
According to Saarinen, player recruitment was the head coach Sami Piilikankaan responsible.
– We have had a full-time coach in the club for the last two years, who has assembled the team. Even now, there has been a list of contact information, who is coming or would like to come. We suffer enormously from the fact that we are a small town, where study opportunities and other things are much worse than many competing teams.
In the Women’s League, HPK is the only club that operates with the men’s league team in the same limited company. HIFK, who won the Finnish championship, gets approximately EUR 100,000 in support per season from the limited company. (you switch to another service)
Behind Rauma Luko’s men’s league organization is the solvent Contineo group, which also owns RTK-Palvelu, one of Finland’s largest cleaning and property maintenance companies. Contineo owns the majority of the shares Raumalaiskiekkilu tuki ry (you will switch to another service)which was founded already in the 1960s “to promote ice hockey in Rauma and to guarantee the conditions for high-quality junior activities”.
According to Saarinen, there have been no discussions at Rauma about the union of women with men in the joint-stock company of the same league team.
– Of course, these are other people’s discussions, but at the moment, at least not related to this. But certainly in the future it will be very realistic to discuss at least.
Maija Koski is a real club legend: she has represented Lukko since the 2012-2013 season and served as captain for the last four seasons. Last October, he broke the 500 power point mark in Luko’s shirt.
The actions of my own club make me sad.
– I’m very disappointed, I wouldn’t have believed it, but I guess you have to believe it. I’m hurt for my team and myself.
Koski still didn’t know how his career would continue. He wants to follow the situation to the end first.
– At least you won’t see me coaching next season.